A Talk with Flora and Pomona '271 



the air over our heads, while on her arm she hung a garland 

 as exquisitely formed and proportioned as if cut in marble, 

 with, at the same time, all the airiness which only flowers 

 can have. The effect was ravishing! simplicity, delicacy, 

 gracefulness, and perfume. The goddess moved around us 

 with an air and in an attitude compared with which the 

 glories of Titian and Raphael seem tame and cold, and as 

 the basket was again passing over our head, we were just 

 reaching out our hand to detain the lovely vision, when, 

 unluckily, the parti-colored dog that guards our demesne, 

 broke into a loud bark; Pomona hastily seized her golden 

 apple; Flora dropped our basket (which fell to the ground 

 in its wonted garb of plain willow), and both vanished into 

 the dusky gloom of the night shadows; at that moment, 

 suddenly rising up in our hammock, we found we had been 

 dreaming. 



